Blunden 'clashed with Guthrie over Nixon coverage'

By Selma Milovanovic

29 April 2010 — 2:08pm

Herald and Weekly Times boss Peter Blunden took a joy flight over Melbourne on the same Qantas A380 super jumbo jet that hosted former Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon on a much-criticised junket to Los Angeles almost three weeks later.

A week later, he criticised Mr Guthrie for not doing enough to promote the forthcoming National Geographic DVD giveaway, seen as a major tool of increasing the newspaper's circulation.

Mr Guthrie has told the court during his $2.7 million unfair dismissal claim against News Ltd that if Mr Blunden had concerns about the promotion, he could have raised them at the preceding management meeting, which he did not attend.

News Ltd chairman and chief executive John Hartigan today described Mr Guthrie's alleged inadequate promotion of the National Geographic DVDs as the "tipping point" for Mr Guthrie's sacking in November 2008.

Mr Hartigan said his chief reason for sacking Mr Guthrie was that he could not get on with Mr Blunden, a situation which had the potential to do the company commercial harm. He said Mr Guthrie "used to lock himself away in his office and didn't communicate with senior staff".

He said that under Mr Guthrie's editorship, the newspaper he described as "the voice of Victoria" had lost its news-breaking ability. He said Mr Guthrie had also neglected sports coverage and was either "unable or unwilling to support promotions which had been the lifeblood of boosting circulation at the Her-ald Sun".

Mr Hartigan said Mr Blunden had been urging him to sack Mr Guthrie since May 2008 and walked away from him in disgust at a Beverly Hills hotel that month.

He said he did nothing about Mr Blunden's behaviour on that occasion because it had happened outside office hours.

Under cross-examination by Norman O'Bryan, SC, for Mr Guthrie, Mr Hartigan said he was unaware whether Mr Blunden had "had problems in his life as a result of drinking."

"He's a highly skilled editor, he's very demanding. Temperamental? I've not seen that side," Mr Hartigan said. "Volatility is not the word I'd use. He's a person who certainly expresses energy in everything he does. He uses his hands as part of his language."

Mr Hartigan said that despite repeated and frequent approaches by Mr Blunden about problems he was having working with Mr Guthrie, he did not intervene when Mr Guthrie also raised the tense relationship with him.

"These two individuals are playing absolutely in the A-league," Mr Hartigan said. "These aren't junior positions. Were I to intervene in spats between individuals over such minuscule issues as editorial appointments I could seriously be derailed in executing my role properly."

Mr O'Bryan told the court Mr Blunden missed the management meeting because of his joy flight.

Asked by Mr O'Bryan whether - in light of Mr Blunden's joy flight - it was unfair to solely blame Mr Guthrie over the poor promotion of National Geographic DVDs, Mr Hartigan said:

"No, sir. I can see for myself it wasn't executed to maximise the promotion. He (Mr Guthrie) is the chief marketer of the Herald Sun brand."

Ms Nixon and her husband John Becquet - a former Qantas executive - were guests of Qantas on the A380's first flight from Melbourne to LA eighteen days after Mr Blunden's joy flight over Melbourne.

The Herald Sun ran a front page story with the headline "Beverly Hills Cop", criticising Ms Nixon's decision to take the flight. Ms Nixon later admitted she was wrong and repaid the flight after Qantas told the Office of Police Integrity it had invited her on the flight in her capacity as police chief commissioner.

Mr Blunden is expected to give evidence in the Guthrie case. The hearing continues.